Control of a Car-like Robot in ROS Environment

The Robot Operating System (ROS) framework is a collection of software component and tools whose goals are simplifying software development for various robots. The Department of Automation and Applied Informatics at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics is developing a demonstration platform for education of robotics and related fields with the use of the ROS framework. Within my thesis project, I have completed the system design plans for this demonstration platform taking into account that it should be possible to easily extend the platform later on and that it should accommodate for a number of different types of robots and their collaboration. During the design of the platform, a few pre-existing components were used, for example robots not originally designed to work with the ROS framework. Within the scope of my thesis project, I worked on designing and implementing various components for the demonstration platform, writing software, and redesigning or adapting existing components for the platform. The main results include the system design plans of the demonstration platform; the design of a general Kalman-filter ROS node that can be used for sensor fusion within localisation and other robotics-related problems; the adaption of a radio remote control to transmit signals through a PC connected to the ROS system to any robot connected to the ROS platform.